The Fight (or The Fight: Lights Out if you reside in North America) is one of the key titles that really brought my attention to the PS Move. While many critics have looked down on this title I would have to disagree. People often forget that we play games for fun. While this game will tire you out, it is a great deal of fun, both for solo play and with your friends.

The BasicsThe game is literally what it says on the case, you fight. There are no rules, so you can fight clean or dirty, pulling off all kinds of fun and impacting moves. The controls are fairly simple; you hold a motion controller in each hand, and do standard boxing moves to fight. The harder you hit, the harder your fighter will hit. Your arms are mapped 1:1, so you can jab, punch, uppercut, itís all your choice. Disappointingly, the more serious moves like elbowing your opponents requires you to perform certain gestures, which can distract you slightly from the game but this isnít a game-breaker. Other Ďdirtyí gestures like putting your opponent in a headlock are more satisfying than the gesture based ones. This move is performed closer to how you would do it in reality, as you hold down the move and T button, and swing your right arm round like your actually grabbing a hold of him. Swift jabs of your left arm then follow to deal the damage. Youíll be swiftly taught the basics in your first start-up of the game, and additional dirty moves are unlocked as you play.

Once you get a grasp of the fight mechanics, there are plenty of things to do. The biggest part of the game are the main events, and you'll be building up your reputation as you fight many people in a variety of different locations. Events are all fights-until-knock-out, but they all have special secondary tasks too, which might require you to not use many dirty moves, or to not loose a certain amount of health. These tasks give older fights re-playability. Different locations set you up against different fighters, and defeating them leads you up to fighting the Ďbossí of the location. The boss character will be the toughest of them all, but successfully defeating them will earn you new moves. This gives you enough incentive to continue through the events, and adds more variety into the game for later on.

Your Fighter
You need to train your character by visiting the in-game gym, and performing fitness techniques like punch-bags and boxing pads to gain skill points. Skill points are then used to level up your fighter's stats, such as improving your stamina or strength. These do make your in-game character stronger, and will probably make your characters punches hit harder than your actually hitting them. Ignoring training entirely will make it near impossible to progress through the game. Opponents get tough very quickly, so training your character often is recommended. The training process is fun because you can set records for combo hits on the speed bags and improving your accuracy on the pads.

You also have options to customize your fighter's appearance. Everything can be customized from body shapes to your clothes. Items don't give you an advantage here, but itís nice have customization choices. Another feature in the character section is injury healing, which is handy for recovering from wounds received during intense fights.

Hidden GemsFitness is also quite a major point of the game. At the end of every fight, the game tells you how many calories you have burnt off. This makes the game a fitness tracker too, and can be personalized further by inputting your weight, height and age to get your BMI. This is quite a nice touch, and some might find this helpful. You can also find stats of how many calories you've burnt off in every match you've done overall, as well as how much you burn in an average fight.

There are many other features to be found in this game. Go into the in-game XMB to find the ability to play custom soundtracks and take screen-shots directly. There is also a full-featured replay editor that allows you can rotate and move the camera, so that you can create your own personalized replays. The editor is also good for setting up instances to create good screen-shots and wallpapers. In fact, all the screen-shots in this review are taken by myself using the replay editor and screen-shot function. Head-tracking is another feature found in the calibration screen, which makes the fighter's head movement mimic yours! Although this feature requires very good lighting conditions, it is very good when it works.

The game does feature online play. You can go into public rooms, or set up a game with a friend. You can also watch and bet on other people's online fights live. I played a couple of matches online and found it to be decent. I didnít have any difficulties setting up a game, nor did i see any lag or glitches present. My main issue with the online is that the servers are empty. My first online experience got me into a room with 3 others. Then over the next 3 days, there wasn't anyone online at all. Sadly, I don't see this problem getting fixed. So if you want some online action, you will need to buddies on your friends list with the game.

Other Things
To play the game you will need two PS Move controllers, or alternatively, one PS Move controller + one standard controller (either a Dual Shock 3 or a Sixaxis). Although the alternative does work, your left arm wonít always react how you want it to. The two PS Move controllers are far superior and provide a more accurate and enjoyable experience. If you own a 3D TV, then rejoice in this game's 3D offerings. Even though I do not own a 3D TV, I did try an early demo of the title in 3D at the Eurogamer Expo. The 3D helped me to judge distance better and gave me more accurate punches. During 2D play, the inaccurate depth perception got quite annoying. The game is quite physically demanding, and depending on your fitness level, you may need a rest after only a few fights.

The graphics are solid, and detailed. Heading into the replay area shows droplets of sweat and blood falling away from faces. Even though the color scheme does look dull from screen-shots, I feel that they are quite immersing. Although, I don't think a full-colored option would have been too hard to include. The soundtrack isn't half bad with a variety of rap, urban, and hip-hop music. Sound effects are good, but rather than having actual character voices, you just hear groans and such.

Final Thoughts
The Fight is an enjoyable fighting game, which shows off the accuracy of the PS Move very well. While some people might find it as enjoyable as I have, others might be put off from its physical demands. I would recommend the game to anybody, and would say to at least give it a rental. It could have been bolstered up with more features, but I think it holds up very well for a near launch Move game with a budget price tag.

The Fight (or The Fight: Lights Out as it's known in North America) is available now in all regions for the PlayStation 3 on Blu-ray disc. The game requires at least one PlayStation Move Controller (and PS Eye) to play. I played the game solo and with friends for over 10 hours, trying out both control methods, and going through all of the games various features.